daggerfall is much more complex to emulate. 0.72 won't make it any faster

Peruse the Bethesda forum for how to install Daggerfall in DOSBox.

Ok, thanks.

But what about this: when I type DAGGER to make the game start, it first shows me some statistics, is this how it's supposed to be:

Scanning for available file handles...... 200
Scanning for mouse..... found
Scanning for Windows..... not present
Scanning for available memory.... 63348/63520

See? It seems I don't have enough memory, or does it?

And would it help if I typed a greater number when I type "mount c c:\Daggerfall -freesize 1000"? Something above 1000?

I don't think I can make it smoother with my config-file, I have set it like this:
core=dynamic
cputype=auto
cycles=max
cycleup=500
cycledown=500

EDIT: I know how to install the game, I just didn't know how to install it on Dosbox 0.72. But since it seems dosbox 0.72 isn't more friendly towards worse computers, ignore that.

Scanning for available memory.... 63348/63520

It doesn't say you don't have enough memory, it says how much of your memory is free for the game to use and 63348 out of 63520 does sound good, doesn't it?
Generally newer versions of Dosbox are better than older version regardless of the computer it runs on, since the emulation is further optimized.

Damn... so there isn't anything I can do? 😢

other than buying a newer computer... no...

Disable the L1/L2 cache in your computer.
Downclock processor if needed.
Play Daggerfall in MS-DOS on your host computer.

Ok, it's quite sarcastic that a computer from 2002 (?) can't play a game from 1996 but... well, I suppose I'm going to have to get used to laggy animations.

But how about another dos emulator, like VMware?

EDIT: How can a program run faster if I downclock the processor? Shouldn't it be the opposite? And disabling the cache, wouldn't that make it slower? Sorry, but I don't know a lot about computers.

Ok, it's quite sarcastic that a computer from 2002 (?) can't play a game from 1996 but...

It's quite strange to think that your computer from 2002 should be bale to EMULATE a computer from 1996 in full speed. Nothing sarcastic about that, but strange that you think it could...

Mjölner wrote:

Ok, it's quite sarcastic that a computer from 2002 (?) can't play a game from 1996 but... well, I suppose I'm going to have to get used to laggy animations.

But how about another dos emulator, like VMware?

EDIT: How can a program run faster if I downclock the processor? Shouldn't it be the opposite? And disabling the cache, wouldn't that make it slower? Sorry, but I don't know a lot about computers.

Stay away from Vmware for DOS games there may be some fringe case where Vmware might possibly be faster in a handful of games compared to DOSBox but doubtful not to mention all of the other issues.

Daggerfall is a buggy POS, one of the issues is that if you're processor too fast (IIRC a P3 900mhz is too fast) then you'll have issues in-game.

Daggerfall is a buggy POS, one of the issues is that if you're processor too fast (IIRC a P3 900mhz is too fast) then you'll have issues in-game.

You keep saying this repeatedly, and no doubt Daggerfall has more than it's share of bugs =). But patched to the 2.13 version it's completely playable (I've played it through at least three times on Dosbox) and saying "it's buggy" doesn't help his performance issues.

For the original poster: Daggerfall was substantially more complex, and thus quite a bit slower, than Arena. It makes sense it might have issues on your machine vs. Arena in Daggerfall, as that was the case with actual MS-DOS machines at the time. And as pointed out, you aren't running DOS, you're running an emulation of DOS, which even with an efficient program like DosBox has considerable overhead.

You should NOT disable the cache or mess with anything along those lines when using Dosbox, only if you chose to try to run the game in DOS. Dosbox is perfectly capable of running Daggerfall on very fast machines, I know this personally.

About the only thing left for you to try Dosbox configuration wise is to set different options for display output (surface vs overlay for example). And if you are running full screen, try that off, preferably scaler = none, to eliminate that as any potential cause. It does sound like your machine is just not quite strong enough though.

Why not run it on a computer with dos installed. MS-Dos 7.1, the one that came with win98.

I've read that playing it on XP's DOS is not recommended because there are many bugs that appear.

I've tried scaling:none and changing output, but none seem to make it smoother. I've also tried different machines, but it seems the standard machine is the best.

temptingthelure wrote:

Why not run it on a computer with dos installed. MS-Dos 7.1, the one that came with win98.

How do you install it? I suppose you don't mean the one that came with XP.

frobme wrote:

Daggerfall is a buggy POS, one of the issues is that if you're processor too fast (IIRC a P3 900mhz is too fast) then you'll have issues in-game.

You keep saying this repeatedly, and no doubt Daggerfall has more than it's share of bugs =). But patched to the 2.13 version it's completely playable (I've played it through at least three times on Dosbox) and saying "it's buggy" doesn't help his performance issues.

No but it's related to the discussion as a whole. How about you read the thread before butting in?

0.73 is better and faster, I can't see a reason to recommend .72 over .73 even on a crap box. Bethesda does have the reputation for making very buggy games with crappy engines with ambitious goals... they still do 🤣

Also for music, try to avoid FM synthesis (OPL2/3) for music. You'll save plenty of CPU that way. Earlier generations of Pentiums tend to be choked alot by the FM emulation in DOSBox, so try to favor General MIDI if you can.

If you're using an nvidia geforce card, you might also want to set your output= to something other than surface, like... opengl or overlay.

No but it's related to the discussion as a whole. How about you read the thread before butting in?

Funny enough, I did. Did you actually read my reply (which makes that amply evident), or just take the opportunity to get all huffy? I directly acknowledged that Daggerfall is buggy, but I'm trying to actually supply him with information that might help his performance (video changes) and steering him a bit away from "it's just buggy". If that's so terrible, ah well, color me a bad person.

This is a game I'm completely familiar with under Dosbox, and it certainly DOES work bugs and all (caveat: i haven't played it through since .73), and while fiddling with BIOS settings for cache might be entirely right for running it in DOS mode, it's certainly not required for Dosbox, since you can just adjust the CPU speed yourself.

@Mjolner:

How do you install it? I suppose you don't mean the one that came with XP.

You can't easily install DOS or Win98 on a machine already running XP. It's doable, but requires pretty substantial computer knowledge. You say you have tried it on other machines under Dosbox - were any of them faster, processor wise, than the one you were using originally? Once you have eliminated graphical issues by using scalar = normal and trying different output= options, you are left with pretty much the CPU cost of emulating the game. Your machine just probably isn't fast enough.

-Frob

frobme wrote:

This is a game I'm completely familiar with under Dosbox, and it certainly DOES work bugs and all (caveat: i haven't played it through since .73), and while fiddling with BIOS settings for cache might be entirely right for running it in DOS mode, it's certainly not required for Dosbox, since you can just adjust the CPU speed yourself.

If you had actually ready MY reply then you would know that I didn't recommend turning off the cache when using DOSBox ONLY when running it on the host computer.

Disable the L1/L2 cache in your computer.
Downclock processor if needed.
Play Daggerfall in MS-DOS on your host computer.

Where is DOSBox in the above quote?

@Mjolner:

Your machine just probably isn't fast enough.

-Frob

There is no probably at all.

frobme wrote:

You say you have tried it on other machines under Dosbox - were any of them faster, processor wise, than the one you were using originally?

I meant the "machines" in the config file, not other computers. You can choose between these: "hercules, cga, tandy, pcjr, ega, vgaonly, svga_s3, svga_et3000, svga_et4000, svga_paradise, vesa_nolfb, vesa_oldvbe", svga_s3 is standard. I tried a few of them, but it only made it slower.

leileilol wrote:

Also for music, try to avoid FM synthesis (OPL2/3) for music. You'll save plenty of CPU that way. Earlier generations of Pentiums tend to be choked alot by the FM emulation in DOSBox, so try to favor General MIDI if you can.

Do you mean I should set OPLmode to "none" in the config? Or is OPL one of the soundcards (digital) you could choose in the audio setup while installing Daggerfall on DosBox?

leileilol wrote:

If you're using an nvidia geforce card, you might also want to set your output= to something other than surface, like... opengl or overlay.

I'm using ATI Radeon x1650 Pro, so I suppose that won't help.

Comments:

- Daggerfall does indeed have severe timing-related bugs on faster systems, including my old PII-450 and my modern systems running DOSBox at high cycle counts. These bugs include slow or nonexistent strafing/backwards movement in cities, much lower/shorter jumping, and greatly increased difficulty in getting the game to realize when you're attempting to climb a wall. I reported these issues to Bethesda around 10 years ago and they never believed me, but now anyone can replicate them in DOSBox at sufficiently high cycle counts.

- Daggerfall is indeed complex and buggy. Bethesda has a long and continuing legacy of making huge, complex, and buggy RPGs.

- Daggerfall is a Quake-era engine, capable of full texture-mapped 3D polygon graphics. Arena is built on Wolf3D-era technology although they put enough tricks in it to make it comparable to Doom IMO.

- To answer the previous poster's OPL-related question: Select MPU-401 / General MIDI / whatever in the game's sound config, and it will route to your host's MIDI settings.